Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 371 posts

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#281

Post by Cthulhu_ »

dba7dba wrote: post #214
jonknee wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than half of those employees are retail workers, the profit per knowledge worker must be immense.

I disagree. Foxconn employees are employees of Foxconn in name only. They are effectively employees of Apple. No Apple hardware would be produced at the price point, in the quantity needed if Foxconn did not exist. So imo, the revenue per employee of Apple as we are talking about is skewed badly.

But it would be unskewed again if you calculate the expenses Apple made for production costs as profit for Foxconn and added that to the figures.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#282

Post by jsprogrammer »

icebraining wrote: post #255
jsprogrammer wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undoubtedly[1]. [1] http://www.space.com/21983-black-hole-rips-and-whips-galacti...

Not sure if replacing the car with a black hole is beneficial to the gas - or in this case, the workers - though.

Gas probably doesn't give a shit, used to be mixed with a bunch of stuff in the earth before someone distilled it out and it eventually ended up in a tank, ready to be exploded.

Was just an example of a positive "yes" answer to your question.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#283

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mchanson wrote: post #110
ykl wrote: post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

More than 1% of the population of Earth bought an iPhone last quarter. 7.125 billion people 74.5 million iphones 74,500,000 / 7,125,000,000 = 1.05%

TIL I am the 1%, :(.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#284

Post by Cthulhu_ »

lucozade wrote: post #221
sinwave wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait - are they actually building aircraft carriers??

You heard it first on HN. Anyway the premise is wrong. An Apple carrier would be much more expensive than anyone else's carrier. And as you'll only be able to get it in white, silver or gold, you might have some camouflage problems.

You mean like Steve Jobs' yacht that was only finished shortly after he died? Cheaper than an aircraft carrier too at only 100 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(yacht))

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#285

Post by Cthulhu_ »

adl wrote: post #121
potatolicious wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than Windows sucking, the OEM laptop industry has largely fumbled hardware. For a while it looked like Dell and/or Samsung might actually give Apple a run for its money in terms of design and quality, but that fell flat on its face. I'm a pretty biased sample, but honestly I know more people running non-OSX on Apple laptops than I know people running non-OSX on non-Apple laptops. Apple's laptops beat the rest of…

Serious question, what makes Apple laptops beat the rest of the industry? No docking station, can't change batteries, no touch screens, no spill resistant keyboards, no matte screen option,etc. You also need those dongles for ethernet and video and can't upgrade RAM or hard drives on the retina models. Sure, the OS (if you need/like OSX, there is little choice), and the trackpad (if you like that those) are good, the…

> No docking station

Don't need one. Wifi, bluetooth keyboard/mouse, external display, and other external peripherals haven't been relevant in the past five years.

> can't change batteries

Fair point I guess, but the battery life is pretty long already (also compared to competitors), and for me personally, I have a static workspace so I don't miss it.

> no touch screens

I think OSX was slowly heading towards that a while ago (with gestures, Launchpad, etc), before someone cut that off saying "OSX is not a touch screen operating system". I don't miss it.

> no spill resistant keyboards

They could use this actually, I've heard too many stories of people having huge repair bills because they spilled onto their shiny laptops.

> no matte screen option

...anymore, :/. No 17 inch anymore either. I guess those were two things that just didn't sell well enough - iirc, the 17 inch MBP only took up 1-2% of total Mac sales.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#286

Post by uknj »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #237
gilgoomesh wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are correct. A better interpretation would be: if the employees owned the company, they'd (effectively) get that much more per year. Instead, shareholders own the company so that money is (effectively) given in equity to the shareholders each year.

Apple shareholders are an enormous cost-center. Perhaps the largest.

Why are shareholders considered a cost? Apple does not have to pay out dividends.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#287

Post by akrymski »

jen729w wrote: post #103
akrymski wrote: post #91

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT…

Ah, things were better back in my day! The kids now, they don't know what they've got. GET OFF MY LAWN! ;-) But seriously. I sometimes find myself slipping in to this sort of mindset; I sometimes even long for my iPhone 5 for exactly the same reasons as you. But this is the inexorable march of progress, right? As if the iPhone 6 we have today is the pinnacle of smartphone design. We'll look back in ten years -- twent…

A slimmer iPhone requires a substantial breakthrough in physics and technology in general. So far improves have been incremental, but as with Moore's Law - we've reached the limit on thinness - current generation of components doesn't get thinner than that.

Sure in a decade or more a new type of silicon may be invented, but it won't be Apple doing it.

And I miss iPhone 5 for the same reasons Steve Jobs always said its the perfect size - it fits my hands perfectly. This isn't about me getting old. It's basic UX and ergonomics. These larger phones are ergonomically worse. Sure they pack a big screen, but I don't really see the point. I think it's just a craze. I've seen lots of people who haven't bothered to upgrade to 6 cause they think it's too big, and I'm not recommending people do - for the first time in history of Apple's product line. I think there's a reason for that.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#288

Post by zhte415 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #280
ykl wrote: post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

I think that might be a very misleading way to think about it. Sure, maybe Apple could buy 12 nuclear carriers (Although I think inflation may have changed that number a bit. [Also, your $6.2 billion figure is apparently sourced from Fox News[1][2][3], which (of course) doesn't cite a direct source for that claim, only an author credit to Associated Press[4]]), but assuming they did, all they have is 12 huge hunks of…

To get recursive, don't forget to subtract the profit of sales of iPhone chargers now increasingly installed on modern military vessels.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#289

Post by akrymski »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #104
akrymski wrote: post #91

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT…

> nor do I see another product category being as big as the truly personal computer that is the smartphone I think these sectors will merge with solutions like Ubuntu Touch (though probably a MS/iOS/android version) creating a bigger smartphone sector but smaller overall combined sector. Also re: apple sales growth, they just have to maintain market-share as the developing world becomes wealthier the volume growth is…

Indeed, how many people in the world are rich enough to buy an Apple product with its associated high margin? A billion? That's about how many iOS devices Apple sold to date. Can it keep growing at 30% a year? I think it will simply run out of new customers and out of new products that will sell like hot-cakes.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#290

Post by akrymski »

threeseed wrote: post #100
akrymski wrote: post #91

Having bought the iPhone 6, I have to say I miss the size of iPhone 5, being able to use it with one hand, being less slippery, and the sturdy design. Many months passed by and I still miss it - this has never happened before. I won't be buying the Apple Watch because I have a real watch. And I simply don't see the point in having a watch that does a fraction of what my phone already does. I have just bought some PUT…

Pretty dumb move to bet against Apple. Apple can and likely will release an iPhone 6s mini after they've exhausted their component supplies for the iPhone 5. But the very fact you bought the iPhone 6 (with its higher margin) just shows they know what they are doing. As for growth in smartphones they haven't even made a tiny dent in China, India or African countries. As for revenue drivers. The Apple Watch and future…

I'm not saying they will rollover and die tomorrow. I think it's enough for them to start growing at a lower rate than the current 30% for the stock to take a hit.

iPhone 6 mini - sure I see that. But it wont be much of an improvement to 5s, so not that many people will buy it.

The other product lines are less than 10% of revenue.

Asia is the key - and if they can keep the momentum they have in China for a few years numbers won't be bad, BUT even so I struggle to see the same YoY growth that they currently have.

Post reply on HN